I drove to work this morning under the super moon hanging in the sky unperturbed with its great white face, while the radio played NPR reporting the sounds of an air strike in Gaza that killed a little girl named Noor, among others.
And there in that moment, like so many other moments, I was holding the grief of a war I am powerless to stop and the absolute awe at a God that continues to make the sky, the moon, the sun, so beautiful. It seems I am here to learn over and over again this truth from Rilke in his poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing:
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Beauty and terror seem to accompany each other, no matter what road we travel. And I hate that.
But, I am perhaps old enough now to also love it. Because how would I move from day to day holding only terror. Knowing only the death of a little girl named Noor and not the beauty of a super moon to light her passing?
It reminds me too of the interview we did with Deborah Farmer Kris on Constant Wonder | BYUradio — she made a comment that keeps replaying in my head: that awe is the thing that allows us to hold these diametrically opposed feelings simultaneously. To have joy in one hand and fear in the other. To carry love and regret. To see the suffering in the world and still know the beauty.
And this idea leads me to one of my favorites from theologist Jeffrey Vogel in his book All Manner of Things:
Those who believe in Christ are safe to look for goodness in their suffering, safe even to speak of the gifts they discover there, not because suffering is ever good, but because God is good and God enters into our suffering.
And whether or not you believe in traditional Christianity, I think the idea holds that belief in a higher power or nature or a sympathetic universe, lets us safely find good in every circumstance, because the divine is present in every circumstance.
I wouldn’t presume to hand this sentiment to anyone actually in one of the (too many) active war zones at the moment — truly the only sentiment worth giving to those who are living this out right now is love.
And so I love the super moon. I love little Noor and her parents. I love the divine presence that settles over all of us, no matter where, no matter when. The great blue of the sky that continues to show up, day after day.
This is just beautiful!
Lovely